Thoughts on Essay 1:
John Berger emphasizes the importance of vision when he states “it is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it” (7). In the past when science was not dominant, “seeing was believing”. Even today, this concept holds some validity in that “the way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe in” (8). Berger is able to distinguish vision into two components. He characterizes ‘seeing’ as an involuntary process where one detects a stimulus while ‘looking’ is a voluntary process where one chooses what to see. Vision is a unique process that is “continually active, continually moving, continually holding… constituting what is present to us as we are” (9).
Images are ways of ‘seeing’ and looking’ and can be captured by painting, photography, and other media. These mediums are all unique and represent one form of sight which is shaped by one’s previous experience and preconceptions. The image-maker contributes to the record because the image is a representation of the maker’s interpretation of the subject. It is this directness of images that makes them “more precise and richer than literature” (10). Berger’s use of image-only essays serves to challenge us to compare and contrast these images. By doing so, we are able to examine them critically. The image-text essays give context to the images and allow us to analyze them in a new light.
There is a processes of how images came to be. “Images were first made to conjure up the appearances of something that was absent” (10). When the images could outlast what it originally represented, images then evolved to show how people at a particular point in time viewed that image. The beginnings of this type of consciousness first began around the birth of the Renaissance.
There are different elements that constitute viewing some object. The experience viewing a landscape in front of you differs from viewing a landscape painting that was made in the 1905. When viewing the landscape painting made in 1905, you tend to place yourself in history – a different mindset than from viewing that same landscape in the present. One example of this is with the paintings of Hals as described by an art historian. The art historian says that those paintings “seduce” us into believing that we can know the personality traits and even the habits of the men and women portrayed. Though there is great skill involved in portraying the people in his portraits, much of the seduction is not solely created by the painter; it is inherent in the mind of the viewers to accept the way Hal saw the people he was painting.
That goes for any painting/image. In and of itself, the painting/image that is viewed is of something of the past. Therefore when some painting is being viewed, there is this inherent disconnect of the viewer and that image as opposed to the experience of viewing something in the immediate. When a painting is created, it is made by a creator with some perspective. The viewer of that painting is suppose to also view that painting from within the eyes of the creator as opposed to viewing an immediate object in front of himself from his own perspective. Therefore, there is this one universal view when looking at a painting in the Renaissance. This is a type of perspective that is no longer dominant in the present day. “Today we see the art of the past as nobody saw it before. We actually perceive it in a different way” (16).
The paintings of the Renaissance embodied this type of perspective. The European art in that time period “centres everyone on the eye of the beholder. It is like a beam from a lighthouse – only instead of light traveling outwards, appearances travel in” (16). This type of perspective, however, changes with the advent of the camera and photography. The camera “captured and isolated momentary appearances” and showed that the notion of time passing was inseparable from visual experience. What one saw depended on his time and place; this shattered the convention of perspective: “No longer was it possible to imagine everything converging on the human eye as on the vanishing point of infinity” (18). The camera lead to the reproduction of paintings as images and ultimately cheapened the meaning of the original painting. Berger shows this through various examples and venues.
Paintings were originally integral parts of buildings that contributed to their uniqueness, but Berger states that “[w]hen the camera reproduces a painting, it destroys the uniqueness of its image.” As a result, the meaning changes: it fragments and multiplies as works of art are reproduced. Berger provides the example of people viewing a painting through the television. Since each family, or person, views the image in a different environment and since the painting now comes to the spectator, the meaning of paintings is altered.
Yet another issue with reproduction is that the emphasis now shifts from “what it is” to “what it says.” The importance now lies in the fact that the painting is a reproduction of a rarity, not in the painting’s meaning. According to Berger, this leads to a present-day “bogus religiosity” that is concerned only with the market values and owners.
Reproduction also lead to paintings becoming information in that they could be used and modified for people’s own purposes. Berger shows that a cropped version of a painting can completely change the original painting’s meaning — “[r]eproduction isolates a detail of a painting from the whole. The detail is transformed. An allegorical figure becomes a portrait of a girl.” Films are another venue where reproduced images are used. According to Berger, the film-maker uses these images to lead the spectator to the film-maker’s own argument. Since the film, unlike a single painting, unfolds in time, a series of reproduced paintings in succession construct an argument “which becomes irreversible.” Due to the fact that films unfold in time, the spectator cannot (as with original paintings) take their time to examine all elements of the paintings.
Words are also often added to reproduced paintings. These words alter the meaning of the image. Berger provides Van Gogh’s “Wheatfield With Crows” as an example. When this image is presented without words, one might not think of death at all, but when it is later modified with the words “This is the last picture that Van Gogh painted before killing himself,” one would be more inclined to associate the seeming chaos in the image with Van Gogh’s death.
Berger claims that modern means of reproduction have thus fundamentally destroyed the authority of art. This new language of images “confer a new kind of power”: publicity.
Thoughts on Essay 2:
Modern publicity images have many drawn many similarities to classic oil paintings. Often, modern advertisements shamelessly steal images and devices from these oil paintings. The inclusion of these classic images in advertisements is, at first glance, an attempt to draw attention to the ad by using a familiar image. However, John Berger argues that modern advertisements are trying to establish a more powerful connection to the reader, as opposed to one of just recognition. According to Berger, modern advertisements try to appeal to the viewer’s knowledge of art, culture, and history by presenting the viewer with images and devices that are present in classic works of art.
One of the reasons why advertisements tend to ‘quote’ works of art is due to the associations of art with affluence and wisdom (Berger 135). These associations suggest that advertisements are directly aimed to exploit the desires and fantasies of consumers. In addition to these appeals, sometimes certain devices, instead of entire works of art, are ‘quoted.’ These devices contain images familiar to consumers: serene mothers, luxurious materials, and the embraces of lovers (Berger 138). Although the devices may not be specific to a work of art, they appeal to concepts that have become universal to humanity. Thus, classic works of art have become more than just images in the minds of consumers—they have become a ‘visual language’ that the consumer is well versed in and an advertiser can summon at will (Berger 140). This section of the reading can be summarized in one quote: “publicity is, in essence, nostalgic” (Berger 139). Appeals to the consumer’s historical background are what drive advertising campaigns due to the certain connotations consumers place on historical and artistic images.
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We’ve been talking an awful lot about propaganda lately, so why not try to see if we can make some kind of nice segue way from that into advertising? Such a connection may not be obvious at first. Propaganda, we think of Hitler! Nazis! Lies! The manipulation of the masses! Advertising is Pepsi! Nikes! Ipods! The manipulation of the masses – oh, hmm…
Propaganda and advertising can both be characterized as media-based expressions of political will working on people. Hitler, the British, the Soviet Communists – all worked to spread and control information in multiple formats in order to achieve political goals, to win people to their cause, to make them hate the enemy, to get them to go to war, etc. We call this propaganda. So what is advertising? Advertising – or, as Berger calls it, publicity – is the dissemination of information in varied media promoting something commercial. Like propaganda, it’s information that seeks to affect behavior – commercial behavior, in this case. But it’s no revelation that commercial concerns are never just that. Money is power, and politics is all about power. Who has the power in advertising? For Berger, the answer is clear: the advertiser. The people and companies who create advertising hold a kind of power over the masses by producing so much of the media and messages that we see, read, and hear every single day. And similar to propaganda, these messages are targeted to different groups. Different classes are promised different transformations: for the working classes, products cause “personal transformation”; for the middle class, social transformation arises from owning products (p.145). Berger sums up the ultimate aim of advertising: “The purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his present way of life….It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better” (p. 142). Advertising is designed to get people to want to spend money, to create desires that empty wallets – but not all wallets. “The only places relatively free of publicity,” Berger writes, “are the quarters of the very rich; their money is theirs to keep” (p. 142). Their money is, in fact, largely made up of what was once your money, and that is point of publicity: put simply, to keep money flowing from the poor consumer/workers to the rich producers/owners. Now, perhaps that’s an overly radical way to put it, but it can’t be denied that advertising’s goal is to maintain the economic status of those with the power to advertise and thus to help maintain the whole class structure. And that’s definitely a political motive. Advertising’s power goes beyond merely controlling the money of the people, however. As a ubiquitous visual and pictorial mode, often making use of art, advertising constitutes a major part of the massive deluge of reproduced images that – going back to the topic of the first essay – Berger claims is used by the elite classes to manipulate the culture of the masses and control their relation to art and history.
Advertising, or publicity, is used by the upper classes, the rich and powerful, to maintain class politics and to exercise control over the people below themselves, primarily through images. Use of media to influence and exert power over the masses for the furtherance of political goals – no, it’s not propaganda, it’s advertising!
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Like any good cultural critic, Berger makes a great point in his essay about how “publicity” (for this purpose, I’ll use advertising and publicity interchangeably) works to advance consumer capitalism and class anxieties. Berger makes the argument that publicity turns every viewer into a “future buyer.”
What the viewer is buying isn’t the product the ad is selling (this is almost insignificant, what’s being advertised is a brand, not a product itself), but rather they’re buying into the idea of their future, better, self. As Berger says, “the purpose of publicity is to make the spectator marginally dissatisfied with his own life…It suggests that if he buys what it is offering, his life will become better.” This is very apparent in ads for luxury items, which often showcase celebrities in extremely glamorous settings, operating on the premise that if you spend thousands of dollars on a handbag, you will be magically transported to this glamorous paradise as well, almost turning into the celebrity. This Louis Vuitton ad, featuring tennis player Andre Agassi promises the spectator love and even says “there’s no greater journey.” Of course, for this journey, you need a $4,000 bag.
Not everyone can afford a Louis Vuitton bag and Berger brings up the fact that the publicity will change depending on the intended audience. He says that images aimed towards the “working-class” promises “transformation through function;” and for the middle class it promises “transformation of relationships through a general atmosphere created by an ensemble of products.” The above ad is a perfect example of one part of Berger’s theory: the Louis Vuitton bags are just an accessory, something the couple took on a vacation to see each other (maybe flying first class?) The background of the shot includes a laptop, digital camera, car keys, and a cell phone. What the ad is selling is Agassi embracing the woman on the bed: the fantasy that being rich and having money will lead to love and well-lit romantic life.
I have to disagree with a bit of what Berger is saying in this argument as I find that ads aimed towards working class people don’t always sell them transformation, but rather enforces their reality. The below print ad for Walmart which targets a traditionally low-paid demographic (nurses) and focuses solely on the cost-cutting benefits nurses can achieve by shopping there. There is no fantasy here, only practicality.
Berger also discusses the notion that publicity sells us an escape from the drudgery of work, where most of us will spend the majority of our waking hours. Many ads operate on the anxiety that is produced by facing down years and years of working for someone else with no say in many of your daily desisions. Berger says, “the passive worker becomes the active consumer. The working self envies the consuming self.” I thought the below ad for Starbucks Double Espresso (coffee in a can) was a great example of this tension; the guy drinks his Starbucks and is suddenly able to handle his public transit commute, bleak office job and even begins to imagine a future in which he is promoted to middle management.
The worker stops being “powerless” (as Berger says) and is suddenly motivated to keep working. He is empowered, not by his own drive, but by his choice of beverage in the morning. As Berger mentions, “the choice of what one eats (or wears or drives) takes the place of significant personal choice.” In that way, publicity continues to drive capitalism by making the viewer think they are doing something significant by buying, when in fact, they’re just losing money.
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Blog post by: David Huie, Lakshminarasimhan Muralidharan, Cat Callaghan, Maria Diaz, Justin Sun, and Vincent Arrogancia